Kansas tabs Lance Leipold as next man to rebuild football program

After the debacle of the brief Les Miles era, Lance Leipold has been hired to come in and rebuild Kansas football.

After the dismissal of Les Miles and athletic director Jeff Long not too far afterward back in March, the search for a new football coach at Kansas ramped up recently. On Friday, according to Stadium’s Brett McMurphy and their own announcement, Lance Leipold will be the new Jayhawks coach.

Leipold spent the last six seasons at Buffalo, with a 37-33 record and a 24-10 mark over the last three seasons. The Bulls have ended the last two seasons with a bowl victory.

Before making the move to the MAC at Buffalo, Leipold spent eight seasons as head coach at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater. He had a 109-6 record there, with five undefeated seasons and six Division III championships.

Can Lance Leipold resurrect Kansas football?

The Jayhawks went 12-1 with an Orange Bowl win in 2007 under head coach Mark Mangino. Things went down from that peak, with 8-5 and 5-7 marks over Mangino’s final two seasons. But things really went in the tank after that.

Over the last 11 seasons, Kansas football has a 21-108 record and six conference wins spanning the head coaching tenures of Turner Gill, Charlie Weis (Clint Bowen interim to finish 2014), David Beaty and Miles. They have won no more than three games in any of those seasons, with two winless campaigns. Competing in the Big 12 is definitely tough, but Kansas has fallen to a point where winning any game is a shocker.

Miles came with the buzz his name carried and little else to back it up. Even without the off-the-field stuff that resurfaced from his time at LSU, Miles may not have lasted more than another season as the Jayhawks’ coach.

Leipold built a winner at Wisconsin-Whitewater. He took Buffalo from 2-10 in his second season (2016) to 10 wins two years later to start that 24-10 three-year run. Kansas is hoping he can do something similar with their program. If they give him the time to do it, there’s chance their time  in the college football toilet for over a decade will finally end.